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Title: The South Wind
Author: Lord Dunsany [
More Titles by Dunsany]
Two players sat down to play a game together to while eternity away,
and they chose the gods as pieces wherewith to play their game, and for
their board of playing they chose the sky from rim to rim, whereon lay
a little dust; and every speck of dust was a world upon the board of
playing. And the players were robed and their faces veiled, and the
robes and veils were alike, and their names were Fate and Chance. And
as they played their game and moved the gods hither and thither about
the board, the dust arose, and shone in the light from the players'
eyes that gleamed behind the veils. Then said the gods: "See how We
stir the dust."
It chanced, or was ordained (who knoweth which?) that Ord, a prophet,
one night saw the gods as They strode knee deep among the stars. But as
he gave Them worship, he saw the hand of a player, enormous over Their
heads, stretched out to make his move. Then Ord, the prophet, knew. Had
he been silent it might have still been well with Ord, but Ord went
about the world crying out to all men, "There is a power over the
gods."
This the gods heard. Then said They, "Ord hath seen."
Terrible is the vengeance of the gods, and fierce were Their eyes when
They looked on the head of Ord and snatched out of his mind all
knowledge of Themselves. And that man's soul went wandering afield to
find for itself gods, for ever finding them not. Then out of Ord's
Dream of Life the gods plucked the moon and the stars, and in the
night-time he only saw black sky and saw the lights no more. Next the
gods took from him, for Their vengeance resteth not, the birds and
butterflies, flowers and leaves and insects and all small things, and
the prophet looked on the world that was strangely altered, yet knew
not of the anger of the gods. Then the gods sent away his familiar
hills, to be seen no more by him, and all the pleasant woodlands on
their summits and the further fields; and in a narrower world Ord
walked round and round, now seeing little, and his soul still wandered
searching for some gods and finding none.
Lastly, the gods took away the fields and stream and left to the
prophet only his house and the larger things that were in it. Day by
day They crept about him drawing films of mist between him and familiar
things, till at last he beheld nought at all and was quite blind and
unaware of the anger of the gods. Then Ord's world became only a world
of sound, and only by hearing he kept his hold upon Things. All the
profit that he had out of his days was here some song from the hills or
there the voice of the birds, and sound of the stream, or the drip of
the falling rain. But the anger of the gods ceases not with the closing
of flowers, nor is it assuaged by all the winter's snows, nor doth it
rest in the full glare of summer, and They snatched away from Ord one
night his world of sound and he awoke deaf. But as a man may smite away
the hive of the bee, and the bee with all his fellows builds again,
knowing not what hath smitten his hive or that it shall smite again, so
Ord built for himself a world out of old memories and set it in the
past. There he builded himself cities out of former joys, and therein
built palaces of mighty things achieved, and with his memory as a key
he opened golden locks and had still a world to live in, though the
gods had taken from him the world of sound and all the world of sight.
But the gods tire not from pursuing, and They seized his world of
former things and took his memory away and covered up the paths that
led into the past, and left him blind and deaf and forgetful among men,
and caused all men to know that this was he who once had said that the
gods were little things.
And lastly the gods took his soul, and out of it They fashioned the
South Wind to roam the seas for ever and not have rest; and well the
South Wind knows that he hath once understood somewhere and long ago,
and so he moans to the islands and cries along southern shores, "I have
known," and "I have known."
But all things sleep when the South Wind speaks to them and none heed
his cry that he hath known, but are rather content to sleep. But still
the South Wind, knowing that there is something that he hath forgot,
goes on crying, "I have known," seeking to urge men to arise and to
discover it. But none heed the sorrows of the South Wind even when he
driveth his tears out of the South, so that though the South Wind cries
on and on and never findeth rest none heed that there is aught that may
be known, and the Secret of the gods is safe. But the business of the
South Wind is with the North, and it is said that the time will one day
come when he shall overcome the bergs and sink the seas of ice and come
where the Secret of the gods is graven upon the pole. And the game of
Fate and Chance shall suddenly cease and He that loses shall cease to
be or ever to have been, and from the board of playing Fate or Chance
(who knoweth which shall win?) shall sweep the gods away.
[The end]
Lord Dunsany's short story: South Wind
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